Marijuana Legalization Hasn’t Hurt Alcohol Sale, Study Finds

(CBS Local) – For the 28 states in which marijuana is legal in some form, conventional wisdom might suggest that could be problematic for liquor stores. One might imagine they’d be direct rivals the same way a new Italian restaurant would steal some customers from a Mexican restaurant.

But this isn’t the case according to financial analysts at the firm Bernstein. Booze sales are marginally up in the three years after legislation rather than going down as could’ve been expected.

“At first sight, one would regard marijuana and alcohol in general as clear rivals and that every extra dollar spent on weed meant a dollar less on booze,” Bernstein said, via Guardian. “Our analysis indicates that the legalization of medical marijuana had a positive impact on beer volume trends.”

Bernstein reckons not only will it not harm, it’ll continue to aid sales as they’re natural compliments rather than competition.

“This would imply that previous users of marijuana now have more disposable income to spend on either more booze or more weed,” the analysts said. “One does not need to look far into popular culture to see that beer and weed cultures can be highly complementary.”

They also conclude that business such as Dominos and Chipotle have been beneficiaries from marijuana legalization, but that’s no surprise.